New heart monitor allows doctors to test patients from home

(WCMH) -- A new heart implant is small about the size of a paper clip.

Doctors at Ross Heart Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, are the first to implant this new FDA approved wireless heart monitor.

"The idea is that we can know when you are gaining fluid even before they even develop symptoms and make adjustments in their medications," says Cardiologist Dr. Ayesha Hasan.

Doctors use video screens to guide them in the placement of the implant. The wireless monitor is placed inside the patients pulmonary artery in the lower lobe of the lung through a catheter. The entire procedure only takes about a half hour.

With this device doctors can know how a patient is doing from their own home, even monitoring and measuring pressures in their heart and lungs remotely.